Saturday, October 07, 2006

I love the winter squash--for color, shape and size they're about the prettiest things around--I just feel more domestic looking at them.

Someone out there have a good squash-disguising recipe. Anyone?? Hard to beat them sliced, roasted and covered in maple syrup with a dash of nutmeg but then they'd be onto me.

I had Dad over for dinner while Mom was out of town and I fixed this fabulous butternut squash puree soup with sage croutons. Dad scarfed it down and wanted seconds and Spencer could hardly keep quiet (I'd sworn him to secrecy about the "secret" ingredient, which gives you an idea of my Dad's level of competance in the kitchen if he can't even figure out squash soup). Finally Spencer couldn't keep it in any longer and said, "There's SQUASH in there Grandpa!" Like it was laced with arsenic or something. So much for seconds, that was quickly abandoned, somehow the thrill was gone. "So what's for dessert?"

Monday night was yard work night and I collected what flowers were left. I also picked the rest of my vegetables, if you look very closely you'll see a genuine, bona fide Alaskan artichoke. Evidently he's trying to pass himself off as a Brussel sprout. Out of my eight plants that's all I could produce--the weather stunk so badly nothing much grew as it normally does (one pathetic tomato). But if I can point out my celery, brussels sprouts (yum) and red cabbage with pride . . .

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comments:

OK, are you ready for this? If you're not vegetarian (or even if you are, you could use TVP), you can puree them and put them in CHILI. I kid you not, and it tastes fabulous. I have a great recipe for pumpkin chili, but you can sub the other autumn squash.I'd be happy to share--I think I even got it off allrecipes.com.

I had to come, because..."scribbit." I'll be saying that all night now. Of course, I'm on painkillers.

Also, lived in Anchorage one summer when I was blissfully young, and swore I'd move there one day. *sigh* Of course, I never experienced the winter...

I LOVE everything about your blog. The banner is absolutely beautiful, love the lists and recipes section, and I really dig the writing (your son blurting out the "secret ingredient" made me laugh out loud. Very cute story.

Thanks for stopping by my site -- I'll definitely be back to visit here.

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BTW, my uncle lives in Fairbanks, but funny enough, my family never traveled there to visit him. Boy, were we missing out!

Here's something I've done with squash, and it's quite nice - chicken/squash burgers. There is no true "recipe" - I just sort of made this up, so be warned!

Saute some onion and garlic in a frying pan. You can also use some minced up mushrooms if you like.

Steam the squash until nice and soft. Mash it up.

In a bowl, combine ground chicken (could probably use turkey or even beef if you wanted), the sauteed onions/garlic, the mashed squash, some bread crumbs, an egg or two, some parsley and any other herbs you might want.

I love squash. But my husband doesn't. He'll tolerate it for my sake. And soup? I had a wonderful pumpkin soup which also had some butternut I believe, last year for Thanksgiving. It was heavenly and I hardly had room for anything else!

I don't know if this is really DISGUISED, but sometimes we chunk the squash, put it in a casserole dish, add some dried cranberries, cover the bottom of the dish with orange juice, cover with tin foil, and roast. It comes out tasting like orange juiciness rather than squashiness. Neither of which are words, I don't really think. I probably have amounts written down somewhere if you want... Now that I made it sound so appetizing and all...